December 06, 2003

Fang You Very Much

That's a lady above, watch your language. I found her in the backyard bluebird house. We have dubbed her Princess Anne, after her resemblance to the Windsors.

No, not really. Anne was something of a horsewoman. Horses=jumping, regal=royal, therefore spider=Anne.

I know her to be female because, after extensive googling, I found that the male Regal Spiders possess a much darker hue. Both sexes come with the iridescent fangs, though they are not necessarily as green as Anne's.

Yes, I know they aren't so much fangs as they are fang sheaths, and the proper term is chelicerae, but you trying getting a three year old to pronounce "chelicerae," much less understand what they are. Ngnat can get her head and tongue around the concept of fangs. She went to daycare, she knows what it's like to be bitten.

The Sainted Wife's favorite line from the link above?

These spiders are easily tamed and can be induced to jump back and forth from hand to hand.

That's just what she wants; a husband who spends the rest of the winter trying to train a poisonous arthropod to jump onto body parts. I considered doing it, too. A Mason Jar, some crickets, some down time with the family in front of the fireplace--what more could any spider wrangler need?

I let Anne go in the garage instead. She'll have a better chance of overwintering in there instead of the bluebird box, and she's still a little small for the hand to hand jump to be very impressive.

Give her a year of dining on the camel-backed crickets under the beer refrigerator, then we'll see.

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Comments

Okay, you had me on the anti-Anne squad until the line about camelback crickets. Go, Anne! Where can I get one?

I just found one of these critters in my geerage. : ) We're in Iowa. It's huge!!!! The spider that is. Dark brown to black with beautiful bright green fangs. On his belly are two light colored rows. I'm pretty sure this is it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it sure looks like one.